1910-1983 · Milwaukee, USA
A Milwaukee baker who signed himself Freelance Artist, Poet and Sculptor, Innovator, Arrow maker and Plant man, Bone artifacts constructor, Photographer and Architect, Philosopher. He was underselling.
The life
Von Bruenchenhein worked in bakeries and greenhouses and lived modestly with his wife and muse Marie, whom he photographed for decades in home-made glamour sessions with tinsel, crowns and painted backdrops. The house filled steadily: apocalyptic finger-paintings after the atomic bomb, towers of chicken and turkey bones, concrete masks, ceramic crowns fired in the kitchen stove. Almost none of it was exhibited before his death in 1983, when the John Michael Kohler Arts Center stepped in and preserved a life’s work entire.
The work
Thousands of pin-up photographs of Marie, luminous finger-painted infernos and botanical galaxies, delicate thrones and towers of poultry bone, painted concrete heads. A complete private civilisation, produced on a baker’s wages in a small Milwaukee house.
Why we love them
The greatest job title in art history, fully earned. Ambition needs no invitation and apparently no budget.
Go deeper
- John Michael Kohler Arts Center
- Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
- The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.
Kindred spirits
Howard Finster1916-2001, Summerville, Georgia, USA
Simon Rodia1879-1965, Los Angeles, USA
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Untrained and unstoppable, like them? Like us?